Outdoors
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Clusters of Critters or Hordes of Herds
BY JACK SPAULDING While gathering information about eagle watch programs across the state, I came across something noting that a group of eagles was not technically called a “flock.” Doing what is totally unexpected of an outdoors writer, I researched the proper terms for collective groups of animals. Sure enough: A group of eagles is… Continue reading.
Outoor mythbusters
By Jack Spaulding In the course of over 30 years writing about the outdoors, I have had access to a lot of “confidential” facts given me on the QT from the conspiracy theory crowd. There are always eyewitnesses or a staunch, believable individual, who is the source of the confidential information. It usually goes, “I… Continue reading.
Squirrel Dinner
I haven’t had much of a chance to get out and challenge the squirrel population this year. The ones raiding the bird feeder and those making forays across our yard to the neighbor’s butternut trees live under an unspoken umbrella of protection here on the home front. However, their woodland cousins are fair game. On the… Continue reading.
Beware the one-lined purple people impeder
When I first heard about the new “Purple Paint No Trespass” law, I thought it was a joke. But believe it or not, in our label-loving, litigious society, an easy-to-read “No Trespassing” sign is being upstaged by a simple swatch of purple paint strategically placed on a post or tree. This can now legally define… Continue reading.
Tipping the Scales
BY JACK SPAULDING Friday the 13th proved lucky for a Crown Point angler who broke the record for the biggest lake whitefish caught in Indiana. Dustin Meeter landed the record 6-pound, 3-ounce lake whitefish on Lake Michigan near Burns Harbor in Portage on Friday, April 13. The fish measured 25.5 inches long. Meeter’s fish marks… Continue reading.
Where asparagus once grew wild
By Jack Spaulding One of my fond experiences as a child came with the first warming days of spring. Prior to cultivated side ditches, mowed fence rows and the liberal use of herbicides, wild asparagus proliferated in the side ditches along the county roads. And it was free for the picking! The sporadic patches took… Continue reading.
Mongoose … whither shall you wander?
BY JACK SPAULDING I recently returned from a six-day mission trip to Haiti. Haiti is a country with which I have become well-acquainted as I have been there seven times. Overall, the western side of the island of Hispaniola is mostly devoid of jungle and woodland having been stripped of wood for charcoal for cooking fires…. Continue reading.
Raised in a barn
by Jack Spaulding They are at it again … more baby owls! The Indiana barn owl pair — “reality TV” YouTube stars viewed on a live nest cam — are putting on a second act of parenthood. They are raising a second brood of chicks unusually late into the nesting season. The existence of a… Continue reading.
Winter wasps
by B. Rosie Lerner In the dead of winter, we often find wasps on the carpet in our basement, but not always. Sometimes a dead wasp is on the windowsill, other times in a light fixture. We might see dying wasps crawling around lethargically or even attempting to fly. Like a lot of social insects,… Continue reading.
Deer Crossing
by JACK SPAULDING This fall, two family members unintentionally “tagged” and brought home a deer, doing it the hard way. They hit the deer with their vehicles. Both are experienced drivers who have driven in deer country for years. Thankfully, there were no personal injuries, and both deer were salvaged and processed. To help avoid a… Continue reading.
Sound the trumpet!
A pair of endangered trumpeter swans have successfully hatched an offspring in Indiana for the first time since modern bird watching records have been kept. The swan family is in northeastern Indiana’s Steuben County. Before 2017, sightings of trumpeter swan families in Indiana were limited to winter, with the birds breeding in other states. Trumpeter swans… Continue reading.
Sufferin’ catfish!
Note to readers: Jack Spaulding, our longtime outdoors writer, is recuperating from complications from surgery and is unable to write his usual column. In its place, we present a syndicated column he wrote in July 2007 — but not for Electric Consumer — when he invited Electric Consumer senior editor Richard Biever and his kids to… Continue reading.